Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a reproducing apparatus, a correlated information notifying method, and a correlated information notifying program that notify a user that there is content correlated with content that is being reproduced.
Description of the Related Art
In recent years, many portable reproducing apparatuses using a small hard disk drive as a record medium have been commercially produced (hereinafter these apparatuses are referred to as portable devices (PDs)). The recording capacities of small hard disk drives range from several gigabytes (GB) to around several ten GB, which allow a large number of tracks such as several hundred tracks to several thousand tracks to be recorded. Thus, PDs have been drastically widespread. Since the housing of a PD is small and light, content made up of audio data such as music can be recorded as tracks on a record medium of the PD. The user can use the PD outdoor and enjoy listening music reproduced from the record medium.
Content reproduced by such a PD is transferred from an information device such as a personal computer connected through a predetermined communication interface and recorded on the record medium of the PD. On the other hand, the personal computer side rips content from a commercial music compact disc (CD) and records the content in a hard disk drive (HDD). Instead, the personal computer side downloads content from a server on the Internet and records the content in a HDD. Content recorded in the HDD of the personal computer is transferred to the PD and recorded on the record medium of the PD.
When a large number of tracks of music are recorded on the record medium and used, it is necessary for an interface that selects and designates a track of music recorded on the record medium to quickly select a desired track. Such an interface uses for example a rotating wheel or multi-direction keys that designate up and down directions or up, down, left, and right directions to move a cursor on a track list displayed on a display section and select a desired track. When a reproduction key is pressed, a track at the position of the cursor is reproduced.
On the other hand, a PD is often used while the user is moving (for example, walking). Thus, it may be difficult for the user to select his or her desired track with reference to text information. In this case, the user will select his or her desired track by successively reproducing tracks recorded on the record medium. This operation is very cumbersome. To solve this problem, a technology of successively reproducing a highlight portion of each track of an album is disclosed for example as Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2003-50816. According to the method of this related art reference, since the user can automatically check the contents of each track of an album, he or she can easily select his or her desired music without necessity of using his or her hand.